Nationwide Outage in EU Country Due to IT Failure
A variety of computer systems across the Netherlands have been affected by an issue that seems to have originated from a military network. Read Full Article at RT.com.
TroibNews 
The Dutch authorities have not confirmed whether a cyberattack was the cause of a network failure at the Dutch Defense Ministry, which has led to widespread computer issues throughout the Netherlands. The incident resulted in the shutdown of Eindhoven Airport and disruptions to police communications.
The problem, which remains unspecified, was first identified on Tuesday evening within a military network. The Dutch National Cybersecurity Center (NCSC) has been unable to determine if the outage is linked to a cyberattack.
“We are experiencing an outage in one of our networks at the defense department and it is a network that is also used by other parts of the Dutch government,” said Laurens Bos, a spokesperson for the Defense Ministry, in a statement to AP on Wednesday.
Due to difficulties with the data center, the NCSC mentioned that it was unable to send out any security alerts.
Meanwhile, Eindhoven Airport, which also functions as a military facility, had to suspend all flights on Wednesday. Low-cost airlines such as Transavia and Ryanair canceled a majority of their flights, resulting in some passengers needing to travel 150 kilometers south to Brussels, Belgium, by bus.
“There is no air traffic at all and we have very little information about the cause,” commented airport spokesperson Judith de Roy.
The Dutch Coast Guard reported issues with their phones and radios, while the Dutch national police, responsible for passport controls at airports and seaports, indicated their officers had resorted to using cell phones and texting.
It remains uncertain whether the “major outage” affecting mobile telephone services at KPN has any connection to the situation at the Defense Ministry.
No disruptions have been noted at Schiphol, the country's largest airport in Amsterdam. Hospitals also appeared to be operating normally, as did the Dutch tax administration and the national emergency number (112) service.
Last month, a worldwide IT failure occurred as a result of a faulty security update from the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, affecting an estimated 8.5 million systems using Microsoft Windows, leading to what has been called the largest IT outage in history.
Sophie Wagner contributed to this report for TROIB News
The problem, which remains unspecified, was first identified on Tuesday evening within a military network. The Dutch National Cybersecurity Center (NCSC) has been unable to determine if the outage is linked to a cyberattack.
“We are experiencing an outage in one of our networks at the defense department and it is a network that is also used by other parts of the Dutch government,” said Laurens Bos, a spokesperson for the Defense Ministry, in a statement to AP on Wednesday.
Due to difficulties with the data center, the NCSC mentioned that it was unable to send out any security alerts.
Meanwhile, Eindhoven Airport, which also functions as a military facility, had to suspend all flights on Wednesday. Low-cost airlines such as Transavia and Ryanair canceled a majority of their flights, resulting in some passengers needing to travel 150 kilometers south to Brussels, Belgium, by bus.
“There is no air traffic at all and we have very little information about the cause,” commented airport spokesperson Judith de Roy.
The Dutch Coast Guard reported issues with their phones and radios, while the Dutch national police, responsible for passport controls at airports and seaports, indicated their officers had resorted to using cell phones and texting.
It remains uncertain whether the “major outage” affecting mobile telephone services at KPN has any connection to the situation at the Defense Ministry.
No disruptions have been noted at Schiphol, the country's largest airport in Amsterdam. Hospitals also appeared to be operating normally, as did the Dutch tax administration and the national emergency number (112) service.
Last month, a worldwide IT failure occurred as a result of a faulty security update from the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, affecting an estimated 8.5 million systems using Microsoft Windows, leading to what has been called the largest IT outage in history.
Sophie Wagner contributed to this report for TROIB News
